The Vampire Tree (1996) is by Paul Halter who has written a number of detective novels not only in the style of John Dickson Carr, but set in the milieu that Carr tended to set his novels. So Paul Halter's books tend to revolve around impossible crimes and murders inside locked rooms.

The Vampire Tree is more gothic romance than detective fiction. The heroine Patricia Sheridan moves to live with her husband in Lightwood, where outside her window is the tree under which an accused witch was buried. And the tree by which an impossible crime was committed. Bit by bit Patricia comes to identify with Lavinia who was married to the victim, and becomes obsessed with the tree.

I found this book very readable, all the more for it not completely conforming to the pattern of the detective genre. There is quite a lot of blood spilled, crucifix waving, strange dreams, and eeriness. But this book isn't so much about elaborate setups and baffling events.